Apple’s losses highlight down day for tech stocks

Priceline, TripAdvisor are rare gainers after earnings reports

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Tech stocks ended up closing the week with broad losses Friday, led by declines from Apple Inc. that grew as the day progressed— despite the company’s high-profile, retail launch of the iPad mini.

Reuters

Apple launched its new iPad mini in stores on Friday, but investors pushed the company’s stock further down.

The Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP, -0.01%
skidded in late trading, falling almost 38 points to close at 2,982. The Morgan Stanley High-Tech Index
MSH, -0.20%
fell by 1%while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index
SOX, -1.20%
dropped more than ended the day down by nearly 2%.

The broader market was also weighed down by the latest employment figures, as the Labor Department said a better-than-expected 171,000 jobs were created in October, but the unemployment rate edged up to 7.9% from 7.8%. See: U.S. adds 171,000 jobs as hiring picks up.

Apple Inc.
AAPL, -0.87%
shares fell more than 3% to close at $576.80 — hitting their lowest level since late July. The iPad mini officially went on sale on Friday, with analysts predicting a strong weekend of sales for the device. But the stock has been on a downtrend for the last several weeks, with growing concerns about limited supply of new products going into the holiday season. Read: Apple investors tepid on iPad mini launch

Also, earlier, this week, Apple announced an executive shake-up that included the departure of iOS software chief Scott Forstall and retail head John Browett.

Two notable standouts that rose were online travel sites Priceline.com Inc. and TripAdvisor Inc., following their upbeat quarterly results.

Priceline
PCLN, +1.76%
shares climbed more than 8%, to $634.74, after the company reported strong gains in its third-quarter earnings and sales that beat Wall Street’s forecasts. Analyst Michael Purcell, of Stifel Nicolaus, raised his rating on Priceline to buy from hold, in part due to signs that European business has stabilized.

TripAdvisor
TRIP, +0.88%
shares did even better than Priceline, jumping more than 19% to $35.12. The company, which offers online travel reviews and recommendations, on Thursday reported adjusted earnings of 42 cents a share with $212.7 million in sales. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast TripAdvisor to earn 42 cents a share on revenue of $210.9 million.

Other online travel sites rose in the wake of Priceline and TripAdvisor. Orbitz Worldwide Inc.
OWW, -0.35%
and Kayak Software Corp.
KYAK, +0.00%
were each up more than 1%.

Yelp Inc.
YELP, +1.42%
shares fell more than 14%, to close at $20.51. On Thursday, the online review and recommendation company reported third-quarter results that were better than expected, but its fourth-quarter revenue forecast of sales between $40 million and $40.5 million, was seen by some analysts as in line with estimates due to weaker spending on U.S. advertising.

Apple kicks off iPad mini sales

(4:35)

Apple began selling its iPad Mini on Friday, as it seeks to maintain its leadership of the tech industry, Ian Sherr reports on digits.

Groupon Inc.
GRPN, +0.21%
shares continued to disappoint on what was the unofficial anniversary of the daily deal company’s IPO, falling to an all-time low of $3.68 at one point before closing at $3.83. Groupon went public on Nov. 4, 2011 at $20 a share.

Active Network Inc.
US:ACTV
shares plunged by almost 42%, to $5.42, after the online registration platform for sporting events on Thursday reported weak third-quarter results and gave a disappointing fourth-quarter outlook. Barrington Research analyst Jeff Houston cut his rating on Active Network’s stock to market perform from outperform on the grounds that it could take a long time for investors to regain confidence in the company following its weak forecast.

Glu Mobile
GLUU, -0.85%
shares slid 21.5% to close at $2.56 after the mobile game maker issued a disappointing outlook for the fourth quarter, citing in part some underperformance of its current games. At least two brokers downgraded the shares following Glu’s third-quarter report on Thursday afternoon.

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